The martial arts, such as karate, kung-fu, tae-kwon do, kick-boxing, boxing, and others, enjoy increasing popularity as physical sports and mental disciplines. Many of these martial arts are the present day successors of ancient forms of hand to hand combat. As such, the martial arts can require the development of split-second reflexes, requiring practitioners to perceive, analyze and react to a given situation rapidly.
Typically, martial arts are taught utilizing instruction and practice techniques that encourage competition and rivalry among the practitioners. Often, martial arts instructors employ full-contact contest formats and/or non-contact or light contact (controlled) sparring sessions as part of the training sessions. However, the speeds, skills, and movements involved can make scoring such contests or training sessions problematic. In short, scoring is predicated on the subjective evaluation of an exchange of techniques between the participants, either by the participants themselves, or by others. Dependence on subjective judgement in conjunction with the speed, skills and movements can result in improperly scored sessions, contests and/or rankings. Additionally, improper scoring and/or ranking can encourage excessive contact (by a participant attempting to forcefully “record” his strike unmistakably for the evaluator).
Similarly, the ranking of participants is also problematic. Many of the martial arts utilize an advancement system to acknowledge a practitioner's knowledge and skill in an art. For example, many forms of Karate utilize a belt color system where the color of a practitioner's belt denotes the practitioner's tested knowledge and skill in the art. However, such systems do not lend themselves to individually ranking practitioners against other practitioners of the same belt rank. Likewise, such ranking systems do not readily permit the identification of victories in past competition sessions.
Thus, there is a need for a means and method for improved scoring and ranking of participants in martial arts training and competitive matches. The present invention addresses this need.